mid-August 2014

Kurt jumped when he turned on the light and saw Rachel sitting at the table staring down inter her tea.

"My god, Rach, you scared the hell out of me," he laughed a little and started toward her.

She looked up at him, her expression black a moment, as if she didn't recognize him, before she sighed and brought a hand up to rub at the back of her neck. Kurt slowed as he neared her. She didn't look ill, but there was something off about her expression, her posture, that misspoke of her normally cheerful-to-the-point-of-irritating attitude.

"Are you okay, Rachel? Should I call someone or--"

"Who would you call, Kurt?"

He blinked at her question, and then frowned. Blank and pessimistic? The tone didn't suit her at all.

"Well, there's always--"

"Nobody, Kurt. That's who I have. Nobody."

Kurt slowly eased into the chair beside her and put his hand over hers.

"You have me. And Eponine." She flinched, but he pressed on, "And I'm sure, once Finn sees her, he'll--"

"Don't be stupid, Kurt," she spat out, taking her hand from his. "You know how sensitive he is to this situation. You were there when he blew up at Puck and Quinn, or have you forgotten that little slice of drama in our grand high school saga? My only saving grace is that I couldn't look him in the eyes and lie about him being the father."

Over-dramatic, Kurt could work with, and he felt relief as he asked, "And don't you think that's a point in your favor?"

Rachel only rolled her eyes. "This is the one thing I can't get past, Kurt. God, even Brody lit out the second he knew. He didn't even care that I could be the mother of his child, he just--"

"But you're not the mother of his child," Kurt cut in gently and her hands tensed on the table before she sighed.

"No, you're right, I'm not."

"And you were pretty much over him before this all happened anyway," he reminded her and she nodded. "And you know, it's been three days since you came home and she's already sleeping through the night, which is going to be great, once classes start again next week, and--"

"I tried to kill her."

Kurt froze at the softly spoken statement and wondered if he was hallucinating without his morning coffee.

"You...what?"

She took a slow sip of her tea and began calmly, "I woke up this morning and realized that everything that is wrong with my life can be traced back to her existence. Brody, Finn. And you know my dads are barely speaking to me, right? And my messed up audition for Funny Girl--"

"That wasn't Eponine, Rachel, that was--"

"And then this summer," she went on over him, "I couldn't go out for Evita, which yes, perhaps it's out of my league at this stage in my career, but I could have at least gotten chorus, for god's sake. But no, I had to have a baby."

"Rachel--"

"And so I was standing over the cradle this morning, watching her sleep, and I thought to myself, it would be so easy, if I took a pillow and just placed it over her face--"

"Good god, Rachel."

"--I could make everything go way. You know, people forgive at funerals, right? So, I figured..." She trailed off and shrugged, taking another sip.

Kurt stared at her in a mixture of horror and disbelief. He had noticed her stressing the last few weeks, but figured that was just pre-labor jitters. But this? This was just plain insane. And completely out of nowhere, unless he was a complete idiot. Kurt grabbed the cup from her hands, only to gag as he took a drink.

"This is ice cold, Rach. How long have you been sitting here?"

She blinked up at him and frowned.

"I don't know. I think it was four when I sat down?"

"And it's nearly seven. Geez, you've just been sitting by yourself this whole time? Why didn't you wake me?" He stood suddenly as another thought occurred to him. "Where's Eponine? Is she--"

"She's fine, Kurt." A bitter laugh escaped her as she went on, "Isn't that great? The one person on my side and even you care more about her."

"Rachel, no," he shook his head. "You don't--I mean, she's my--"

He cut himself off and flushed, but she waved him on.
"No, go ahead and say it. She's your daughter. Not that anyone but me will ever believe you."

She laughed and if he hadn't been so unnerved by her attitude, Kurt might have laughed himself. Being best friends was one thing. Being fag to her hag was an entirely different ball of wax. Of course, it wasn't as sordid as too much alcohol, too much loneliness, what amounts to a mistake in the dark. There had been doctors and vials and injections the both of them would rather not think about. Yet there had also been a vow of secrecy, and the laughter and ridicule the admission would incur wasn't worth breaking that trust. Or so he had thought at the time.

"Rachel," he began gently, sitting slowly back beside her, "if you're feeling overwhelmed, I am more than willing to step up and--"

"And what? Be a baby daddy?" She sighed in disgust and pushed back from the table. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Rachel--"

"I'm going out."

"Rachel."

"Watch the kid, will you, daddy?" she sneered, and she was gone before he could come up with a reply.

~ < ~ > ~

Kurt brushed a dark lock of hair behind his daughter's ear and sighed. She was so tiny, so breakable. What had he and Rachel been thinking? Embarking on such a crazy adventure, as if it wasn't crazy? He was just twenty-one, Rachel still twenty, and they were both still in school. Those facts alone made all their carefully laid out plans obsolete. No matter how prepared they thought they were, the simple truth was, they weren't.

But Rachel had been so persuasive last year, so determined, and in his deep desire to help her heal from what she wryly termed 'The Valentine's Incident' and other such mysterious-sounding titles, he had been almost too easy to convince. It had only been what, three months from her first broaching the subject to the two of them holding hands, waiting for the doctors to confirm what two pink lines had already told them just days before the appointment? He should have known that inevitable as Brody's walkout had been, it would not be the end, but merely the first in a long line of such occurrences. He wondered, if Finn had known the truth, if he and Rachel could have explained, would he have still ended things, finally, permanently, as he had? Would he still think Kurt had betrayed their brotherhood in standing by Rachel's side? Would Rachel's dads have reacted how they did, cutting off all but her tuition, if they'd known? They certainly couldn't fault her methods, considering their own, could they?

"It's us against the world, sweetheart. And don't you worry about your mama. She's just a drama queen. She didn't mean a thing she said this morning." He swallowed and shook off the sense of misgiving that followed his words. Rachel was probably just having a moment of the 'Baby Blues' he'd read about in the baby book that Carole had sent him. Of course, being Rachel amplified it tenfold or so, but he was sure it was just a phase she would quickly pass through. He chose to ignore the voice reminding him how dead she had been acting these last few days, how the light of love that was stereotypical of all mothers hadn't shone in her eyes when the nurse had laid the squalling, dark-haired angel in her arms. "She'll come around," he went on and then laughed as the infant's tiny face screwed up and she began to cry.

A glance at his watch showed that it was just after eight, and he reached down and took her into his arms. "Like clockwork," he said to himself, thinking of the last three days. He had read that babies born early were light sleepers, but Eponine, three weeks early, seemed to be as contrary to convention as her parents, and slept a full eight hours without interruption. Kurt would bet that other new parents would kill to be as well-rested as he and Rachel were. He knew no new mother could look as well as Rachel did four days out, excepting the dead look in her eyes, that is.

He murmured soothing nonsense into Eponine's ear as he walked into the kitchen and went to retrieve a bottle from the fridge. Though the idea made him squeamish, Kurt had been all ears when the nurse had explained how the breast pump worked, and how one should prepare any milk acquired in such a manner. He shifted Eponine so he was holding her in one arm and used his free hand to flick on the gas range and run a sauce pan under the faucet. He rocked back and forth as he set the water to boil, dropping the bottle lightly into the pan, and the motion seemed to soothe the infants' immediate needs.

"I may not get to be your daddy, sweetheart, but I promise you, I'll be one hell of an uncle."

She made what he took to be a noise of agreement and he grinned to himself and started humming the opening theme from West Side Story.

~ < ~ > ~

Kurt had just gotten off the phone with his dad--a conversation which consisted of a lot of "No, Dad, Rachel's not taking advantage of me," and "Yes, of course I can help take care of a baby without your help," and "No, Dad, I'm not teaching my honorary niece how to play football. Where would I even start?"--when Rachel came bursting through the door singing "Don't Rain On My Parade" at the top of her lungs, and Kurt felt all the stress from their earlier conversation melt away. Rachel Berry, the one he knew and loved, was back.

He rolled his eyes as she spun into the kitchen area and sat down with a bump beside him.

"Have a good walk?" he asked, brows arched, and she grinned.

"Isn't it amazing what a little fresh air will do for you?"

"Quite," he smirked. "So? What's the consensus? What did you decide in the--" he paused to glance at his watch-- "three hours you were gone? Am I stepping up to play daddy, or--"

"Don't be ridiculous, Kurt," she laughed. "You'll do nothing of the sort. You're a top student of one of the most prestigious performing arts academies in the country, you know."

"As are you," he pointed out. "So what are we doing? Hiring a part-time nanny? Begging your dads to come out and help us? I mean, it's not like they can hate her after having met her."

"None of the above. We're adopting out!"

Her smile was so bright it took Kurt a moment to comprehend her words.

"Run that by me once more?"

"We're adopting out," she repeated cheerily. "I went to the library and did some research, and the whole process is actually very simple this early in the game and--"

"This early in the game?" he repeated, standing to tower over the petite brunette. "Rachel, what the hell are you talking about?"

The first signs of a frown crossed her brow and she began again, slowly, "We're going to adopt her out. I think it's become pretty obvious that we moved into this too quickly. I'm barely over the last incident and to think that having a baby would solve it is just--"

"Ridiculous?" he finished for her, his tone acid-washed, and she flinched back. "What's ridiculous is that over a year later you still refer to aborting your own god-damned child as 'the last incident. And yes, maybe it is ridiculous that we jumped into this so quickly. But do you remember how ridiculously happy you were, not just to have a baby, but to learn that it was even possible to do so after you'd gone and risked screwing up your body under the knife of some tweaked-out backroom quack because you were so afraid that it would come out looking like Brody instead of Finn? Do you remember that, Rachel?"

"Shut up!" she screamed at him, reaching a hand to slap him, but he was quicker, and caught her wrist in his own hand. She jerked against his grip, but it was solid as steel and she glared at him as she went on. "You have no idea what any of that was like, what I was thinking, feeling. Did you know that Finn and I were going to get back together? That after Mr Schue's almost-wedding, he told me that no matter what happened, no matter who I was with, I was his girlfriend? Do you know what that meant to me, that after all the shit we'd been through, the boy I'd fallen for in high school still wanted me? It was like a Valentine's Day dream come true, Kurt. And then to find out that I might have screwed everything up anyway? Even after counting and recounting, to not know? One month, and I couldn't be sure if it was just a light period or if Finn was--"

"Maybe you should have kept your legs shut when that jerk showed up on Thanksgiving. I mean, god, Rach, he slept with Cassie. And you forgive him just like that because he has a pretty face and you're too impatient to wait for my brother to get his head in gear? What kind of tacky slut are you?"

"Don't talk to me about keeping your legs shut when you started drooling after that Adam kid the minute you saw him. Falling for an English accent? If you want to talk about tacky." She grappled at his hand with her free one, but only managed to leave the imprint of her nails in his skin. "At least I got to know Brody before I slept with him."

"You are by far the worst girlfriend a gay guy could ever have," Kurt said, gaping at her in disgust and anger. "If you weren't such a self-centered bitch, you'd know that Adam and I only ever went out for coffee before he introduced me to his girlfriend. It was "Gay or European," only Elle wasn't on my side of the courtroom." The anger on her face evaporated into shock a moment, and Kurt paused as he realized they were saying things that may prove to be irretractable. Was he really willing to throw away years of friendship over what he was almost certain was just an influx of hormones? He opened his mouth to apologize when Rachel's face hardened.

"It only makes sense that you would have a crush on another straight guy. You're such a kid. And you could never understand what I'm going through because you'll always be a kid."

She gave a final yank and successfully freed her hand from his grasp. She stormed into the curtained-off area they had deemed the nursery and Kurt stormed after her.

"Rachel Barbra Berry, don't you walk away from me. I am twice as mature as you will ever be. And I think--what are you doing?"

She looked up from where she was kneeling on the floor beside the bright pink tote that held all of Eponine's belongings and raised a brow.

"Duh? I'm getting her things together for the orphanage."

"Orphanage?" Kurt knelt down beside her and placed a hand over hers, his touch gentler than it had been before. "Rachel. You can't be serious. This is our baby you're talking about." He nodded to the somehow-still-sleeping little girl in her crib beside them and a touch of pleading entered his voice. "We pored over musicals for hours before we agreed the only name worthy of our child was that of the dark, forgotten beauty of Les Mis. We worked with Madam Tibideaux personally to make sure our schedules were such that one of us would always be there for her. We lied to our parents just so she could exist. And you want to give her away?"

"God, Kurt, you make her sound like a toy I've grown bored with. And you've just made my point," she added calmly. "If she's gone, we don't have to lie anymore."

"Rachel, you can't just--"

"Though I suppose it'd be better to say it was something like SIDS or pneumonia, complications from a premature birth...make me seem less unfeeling that way."

"Less un--oh, that's rich. And I suppose you being such a great actress will just cry on demand when she's brought up. What shall we say we did with the body? Cremated and tossed in the ocean?"

"That's brilliant, Kurt," she beamed up at him. "I'm so glad you've decided to see it my way. I couldn't do this without you."

Kurt stared at her as she returned to packing Eponine's things in the giraffe-print diaper bag they had giggled over almost a month ago. She began humming "I'm the Greatest Star," and that was when it hit him. The Rachel Berry he knew and loved was not back. She was long gone, and Kurt had a haunting feeling he would never see her again.

"Will you grab the birth certificate for me, Kurt? Though I'm not sure I want her trying to find me someday, not that it would be very hard, considering it's me, of course. But I'm not sure the orphanage would take her without it." A frown crossed her brow before she shrugged and resumed humming.

Kurt felt curiously numb as he walked over to the silver-framed certificate he had hung on the wall just yesterday. It was funny how a flimsy piece of paper could mean so much. As he took it in his hands, he skimmed over the neatly typed information, thinking how they had argued over the name, whether it would be suitable to name her for either of their mothers, only to settle on Nicolette, after the Ravel song, for her middle name, and how despite her insistence on secrecy, she had insisted more that it be Hummel-Berry on the official papers, even if she only ever went by Berry. He remembered thinking his hanging of the document was a bit out of the bounds of said secrecy, what with the name Kurt Elizabeth Hummel typed under the space for the father's full name, but figured he would change it out before any visitors came by.

Kurt blinked as he read the document over again, and his eyes stalled once more, lingering on the slightly-smudged 'e' of Elizabeth, and a fire swept away all numbness. The sudden realization resulted in the loosening of his grip and the frame fell to the ground with a crash, glass scattering on the floor and the noise finally waking the baby.

"Oh my god, Kurt, are you okay?"

He ignored Rachel's cry, attuned to that of his daughter's, his daughter's, as he knelt and slipped the certificate from the glass. Even Rachel's horrified, "You're bleeding, Kurt!" didn't break his concentration as he rolled up the document and put it in his inside jacket pocket. As Rachel knelt beside him, he turned and grabbed the diaper bag, hefting it over his shoulder as he picked up the crying infant. He started toward the door, grabbing his wallet and keys from the bowl by the door, and it was only when Rachel nearly screamed "Kurt!" that he stopped and turned to face her.

"Yes, Rachel?"

"Kurt, you're bleeding. And she's crying. She's probably hungry or--"

"Good point," he nodded, and made a u-turn for the kitchen. It was a bit of an awkward shift as he held crying baby in one arm while he pulled bottles and formula from the refrigerator and cupboards and put them in the now-bulging bag, but he managed it. Despite the fire burning in his veins, he felt an utter sense of calm about what his actions. He was nearly back to the door when Rachel caught his arm.

"Kurt, what are you doing?"

"I'm leaving," he said simply, and she frowned a moment before smiling simply up at him. "Then I should go with you. You don't know what orphanage to go to, I'm sure, and since I'm the mother--"

"And I'm the father."

She stopped and the frown returned to her face.

"What?"

"I'm the father."

"Kurt, what do you--"

"And I'm not going to send my daughter to an orphanage where she'll be malnourished, bullied, and without any of the opportunities she would otherwise have if I keep her."

"Kurt," Rachel laughed lightly. "You've read too much Dickens. She won't be--"

"I will not have my daughter raised by strange, uncaring people!" he snapped, and then started rocking back and forth when the child in question's cries increased. "And I don't care if maybe she would be adopted right away. She's mine."

The dead look returned to her eyes and Rachel shook her head.

"You can't--"

"I can. I'm taking her home, Rachel, to visit her grandparents. And you can do what you like, but I'm not returning until you've gotten over your post-partum depression or whatever the hell this is. You can call me when you do," he added, slipping his phone into the side pocket of the diaper bag. He shifted to open the door and then went still at the tense hand on his arm. He sighed, more aggravated than he thought possible, and began, "Rachel, please don't--"

"You can't go."

There was something about the tone of her voice that Kurt forced himself to meet her gaze, and he felt his insides freeze. What he had mistaken for deadness in her eyes was, he discovered, something more akin to madness. There was hate and malice there, and a desperation that crossed over the border into insanity, and a small voice whispered to tread carefully.

"Rachel. Let me go."

"No," she hissed, tightening her grip, and he flinched as he felt her nails break skin. "You can't go. You can't take her."

"And what would you have me do?" he asked slowly, keeping his voice deliberately calm. "You clearly don't want her yourself."

"And have that thing ruin my life? I'm going to fucking NYADA, Kurt. Do you know what that means?"

"Believe it or not, I do, Rachel." He didn't try commenting on the fact that she had just called their daughter a thing. "But I can't see what having a child is going to do to your life that you haven't already done yourself."

"Seriously?" she laughed, the sound grated over his nerves, and mixed with Eponine's cries, Kurt felt like he had entered his own personal hell on earth. "Do you realize how much I have to give up for her? It's not just Evita, or Funny Girl--" which had nothing to do with your for all intents and purposes second child, he thought, but stayed silent as she went on, "but everything. I can never audition for another show again, not with her demanding all of my time. You think I'm going to be able to afford a babysitter on a nightly basis? Not to mention finishing school in the first place--"

"We worked it out with Madam--"

"Fuck Tibideaux," she cut him off harshly. "You didn't see the look on her face, the pity in her eyes when we discussed the situation with her last term. She thinks I'm already gone, that I'll drop out in a month's time, if that, to care for the thing."

"She certainly didn't look at me like--"

"Well of course not. You're a guy, Kurt, so you don't even have to worry. Not to mention you managed to get her to love "Being Alive" after your audition. I swear, you're her golden boy." She spat the words as if they were a curse, and Kurt wasn't sure he shouldn't take them as such, considering. "But me? I'm the poor little girl who got in trouble and will be stuck in the kitchen for the rest of my days."

"Rachel, I would never ask you to--"

"Oh, please. You keep harping on how you're a guy just like anybody else, why wouldn't you be like every other guy?"

"And how is my taking Eponine home going to endorse that idea?"

"I'll never be free, Kurt," she whispered now, her voice empty now of any discernable emotion. "I'll always have this thing holding me back."

"Rachel. If you don't want..." He didn't know how to put this without insulting her, so he paused before speaking. "My name is on the certificate. I'll take full-custody and you don't have to worry about any--"

"But you promised," she shrieked, and he jumped in time to the loud wail that the infant in his arms gave, and he tried to step back from Rachel, suddenly fearful that she might do physical harm to the child. "You promised you would never tell!"

"Well, that was a stupid promise to make!" he yelled back. "You said it would fix everything! You said you would stop crying! And yeah, you cried from hormones, but you were happy, damn it! And I was going to be uncle and you were going to be mama, and we'd teach her show tunes and she was going to grow up on stage like you and I dreamed when we were kids. Don't you want that?"

Rachel stared at him in shock a moment and then laughed, long and hard. She laughed so long, she relaxed her grip on his arm, and both Kurt and Eponine stopped and stared at her as she fell to the ground. Well, Eponine stopped crying anyway; Kurt wasn't sure she could hold her head in position to stare, but the effect was the same. Kurt watched as she wiped tears from her eyes and looked up at him, a smile on her face, but pity in her eyes.

"Oh, Kurt. You are a kid. This isn't a fairy tale, you know?"

"What do you mean? I'm--" older than you by over six months.

"You're such a romantic." Her face hardened as she eased to her feet and brushed off the slacks she wore. "And Tibideaux is crazy if she thinks you're going to make it with that attitude." He felt a spark of anger as she grabbed at the bag on his arm. "Now stop being such a girl, and give me that thing so I can drop her off at the orphanage."

"Rachel, stop. Don't you see how insane you're being? You were never like this before."

"People change. I don't have time to stand here arguing with you, I've got a date."

"You've got a--what? You've just given birth."

"And I've just lost my child in a horrible twist of fate," she bemoaned before winking. "Finn's stopping by, finally agreed to talk to me. I'll tell him the whole story when he gets here."

"Rachel, are you nuts? You can't just--"

"I'm a great actress, remember? Now let go."

"No," he shook his head and pulled back. Rachel might have been crazy, but he was still stronger than her in the end, and yanked the bag from her grasp. "I'm not letting you do this."

"Is that so? You gonna run and tell your precious daddy on me? I'm not so sure that's a smart move. Being a grandfather unawares might surprise him, give him another heart attack, especially if he finds out you lied to him."

Kurt's eyes widened at the smirk that curved her lips.

"No question, you are insane."

"No, I just know what I want. I always thought my determination was one of my best qualities," she simpered, and he gritted his teeth.

"I beg to differ."

"To each his own," she shrugged. "So are we doing this?"

"No, we're not." Fire lit her eyes, but he held up a hand before she could speak. "I'll keep my promise. And you can spin whatever story to Finn you feel like. But I'm not staying with you. And neither is Eponine. And if you give me fifteen minutes to pack up some things, I can promise you will never hear from me again. All I ask in return is that you don't try to find us."

"And how do you think pulling a disappearing act will affect the family? And Burt?"

Kurt felt his heart clench at the thought, but shook it off.

"He's survived worse. So do we have a deal?"

She stared at him in contemplation, and Kurt felt his skin start to itch as he waited, before a beaming smile crossed her face, and she held out a hand to him.

"That sounds most satisfactory, Mr Hummel. It's so nice doing business with you."

"I wish I could say the feeling is mutual," he bit out, and barely suppressed a shiver as he took her hand in his.

After a firm shake, she traipsed back into the kitchen and sat at the table. He heard her murmuring to herself as he walked into his bedroom and laid Eponine on his bed. To his relief, she stayed quiet as he grabbed a duffel and started tossing things inside, trying not to be too messy, but not wanting to pack so neatly it weighed a hundred pounds. He remembered with relief that he had one of those baby carriers you wore across your chest, and he put it on and slipped Eponine into it, pressing a kiss to her curly head, and giving a brief smile that he had found a simple gray one that would go with everything, rather than the red one he saw in pictures of his own infancy that clashed with everything. As he grabbed the bags again, one over each shoulder, he surveyed his room, and wondered if it really was the last time he would stand in their little Bushwick apartment.

Kurt didn't say a word to Rachel as he walked past her, and only just caught the tail-end of a conversation she was having with herself, something about him feeling horribly guilty and leaving her alone, and he had to forcibly relax his jaw as he walked into the hallway and shut the door. As he walked toward the elevator, he glanced down at the infant in the carrier, and smiled to see that she had fallen back to sleep.

"It's us against the world, sweetheart," he murmured as he entered the contraption, recalling his earlier words to her. "And don't you worry about your mama. She's just a drama queen. She doesn't mean a thing, sweetheart. Not a damn thing."

If Kurt was crying as the elevator descended, there was no one there to see.